What are you playing right now?

[OxBlood]

Oh I do feel like I´m getting better at the stuff I do this time. I´m a pure Mage so I can´t tell you how Melee and Ranged Combat fares this time around but in my "normal" boards I read that it´s pretty good in those departments though ranged seems to be a little clunky at times.

The enemies that scared me away 3 levels ago are now beatable cause I have so many more choices. I can work with damage-reflection, projectiles, shieldspells, summons, debuffs, buffs, I can blind them, I can raise their friends to do my bidding, I can lay heal-traps in advance behind me...Health regeneration is also really fucking fast out of combat like 10 seconds and I´m back to max.

The crafting is also more than "press two swords together and repeat it 100 times to get the best weapon in the game". You dismantle existing stuff to get ressources that you can improve your equipment with which also unlocks gem-slots for additional effects. You can then insert a finishing-gem that boosts all stats on that item but locks it at the same time so you can´t improve it any further.

Then there´s alchemy but that´s pretty straightforward. Pop some things in the pot and get a potion, easy stuff. Ingredients are everywhere, bonemarrow, plants, heads, tounges...

The best thing is the magic system as I said before because it´s so dang modular you can forge new spells in matters of seconds via the component-cards you have.

All in all I´m really suprised in a positive way about this game. I kinda expected another Risen or Gothic 4 and it´s way better than those in any department but story maybe. It also seems to be a direct sequel to the first game and you play the same guy I think.

[King Hadas]

Originally Posted by OxBlood

I´ve never given one shit about the story of Metroid.

Metroid has never really had a story to give a shit about. Most of what we know about Samus was probably taken from instruction manuals and passed on word of mouth. Other M is a departure because it has a very pronounced storyline and it's awful.

Anyways, beat No More Heroes. Here's a game that makes me feel like a bit of a chump for playing it. It's like I'm a rat being stringed along by the scent of cheese. The cheese is there but is it worth the time getting it? If NMH was difficult that would be one thing. In a narrative you have suspension of disbelief, in video games you have suspension of a guilty conscience. I could definitely be doing something more productive but if a game is challenging me it gives me the illusion that I'm accomplishing something. No More Heroes is pretty easy, and the difficult parts are hard like getting 777 on a slot machine is hard.

I liked the incomplete ending more than the real one.

Spoilers!

"You've got to be shitting me"

[DougClayton4231]

I hated No More Heroes and its sequel. Travis Touchdown was a total douchebag and the gameplay was awful (why swing the wiimote when you could mash the A button?). I had such high hopes for the games but they both left a bad taste in my mouth.

[Phoenix Gamma]

The second game was better because it was less awful.

And Travis is supposed to be a more pathetic Johnny Knoxville. So yea, douchebag.

[DougClayton4231]

...really? That makes me cry. The second game had less glaring flaws, but it still managed to be monotonous and absurd.

My PC decided to have an aneurysm yesterday, so I had to replace the motherboard. Now I'm 50$ broker and my graphics card refuses to work Got to love bad luck days lol.

[RaNkeri]

4 hours of Sonic 3 & Knuckles with friends, fuck yeah!

[Esuohlim]

Now there's a sentiment I can agree with!

[OxBlood]

Finished Enslaved over the weekend. An okay game, but very repetitive and sometimes outright boring. Great presentation and characters though.

And guess what? Aparently many players feel cheated by Topware concerning Two Worlds 2 because the main island, that when you see it on the map makes you think "oh wow, so much space to run around!"? There´s only a teensy tiny spot in the middle that is actually accessible. The rest is either in multiplayer (who brings up ideas like this? Multiplayer in an RPG, theres MMO´s for that) or not there at all. Great stuff.

Maybe I´ll shove it back up Gamestop´s ass and trade it for Hot Pursuit...yeah right because I´m known for my extensive love for racing games...

[DougClayton4231]

LMAO, that reminds me of Fable 1. I thought that there would be so much to explore from the map but by the time I realized that it was bullshit, the game was over.

[OxBlood]

Yeah kind of. I AM having fun with the game but I´m gonna return it just because I can´t tolerate it when companies do things like that, it´s not right, not at all.

[Fathom Zero]

http://kotaku.com/5689669/alan-wake-...ames-on-demand

I've bought a few games on the marketplace. It's very nice to not have a disc to lose or break and redownload later if I need to. Prices are mostly fair, but if it's an old game or an unpopular one, you'd end up spending $20 or $30 on a $5 game at Gamestop.

[Dr. Boogie]

For god's sake, go on Amazon or eBay!

[Fathom Zero]

Amazon rocks. I've got a year of Amazon Prime free for bein' a student. Free two-day shipping rocks.

[Dr. Boogie]

Playing Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

I can't decide what I hate the most about this game: the awful camera, the generic music, the drawn-out pacing, or the rote, soulless copying of other, better games.

[OxBlood]

Originally Posted by Dr. Boogie

Playing Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

I can't decide what I hate the most about this game: the awful camera, the generic music, the drawn-out pacing, or the rote, soulless copying of other, better games.

Really? I thought Castlevania was WAY better than God of war 3, which is probably the game you´ll be referring to. If not, please continue

Though I do agree on the music and the camera to a certain extent. The music was just a lot of wasted potential. I mean, Castlevania games have about the best music in any videogame franchise ever most of the time and what we get here just doesn´t cut it. Not at all. The cam...well, it´s shaking all the time for no reason. Other than that I had no complaints about it.

And again about Gow3...and in spoilers because I don´t want to force you guys to read my ramblings about that game AGAIN

Spoilers!

I did play through God of War 3 and I really didn´t like it. It´s all the same...again for the third time in a row...or fourth if you count the PSP-Game. The gameplay is boring, the moves are boring, the weapons are all the same except for the gloves, the writing is...I´m lacking the right word here...atrocious? Yeah, atrocious. You can basically skip everything and yet you miss absolutely nothing, cause you already know what happens. Someone talks to Kratos, he doesn´t care and kills them all, the end. Cause that´s what he´s been doing from minute one in the first game. Gow3 looks great, of course it does. But to me, that´s really all the game has to offer. The music is as generic if not even more generic than LoS´s, the gameplay is FAR worse in my opinion since you just run around and mash buttons and get away with it (apart from the Cerberus fight which was just annoying and way too drawn out), and they seem to rely more and more on really useless violence as a feature for their game.

I know I´ve said all of these things at least twice before, but I just really don´t get why people like Gow3 so much...it IS more polished than Castlevania, that I admit. And it has Kevin Sorbo, so that´s probably a plus too...

Also, I ordered Lufia for the DS and Dungeon Maker 2 for the PSP...I don´t know why but I really want to play both after reading about them. And finally, I did give 2 Worlds 2 back and I´ll get Hot Pursuit on Thursday instead, who knows, I might even like it.

[DougClayton4231]

I didn't hate the camera until the clock tower level. That level was completely awful.

Looking back on Castlevania, I was only really disappointed about the lack of a Frankenstein Monster. I mean, they talk about Frankenstein, you waltz through his laboratory, why not have you fight the monster instead of that stupid fucking robot?

I thought that everything was better about Castlevania though. I just wish that they used the old school music throughout the game, or at least let you do that after you beat it.

[Chojin]

goldeneyyyyye, i found his weakness
goldeneyyyyye, will do what i please
goldeneyyyyye, no time for sweetness
a bitter kiss will bring him to his knees

[Zhukov]

Is it any good Chojin?

[darkvare]

my sister bought a used ps2 and inside there was gta liberty city stories so i'm playing that

[Phoenix Gamma]

Goldeneye is good if you like:

-Call of Duty
-graphics that look like a PS2 launch game (sup Night Club level? Neat 2D people you have there!)
-a game that isn't Goldeneye the Movie or Goldeneye the Game whatsoever.
-Daniel Craig

I don't like any of those though.

And seriously...2D DANCERS IN A NIGHT CLUB?! IT'S NOT A BIG LEVEL FUCKING SONIC COLORS LOOKS GORGEOUS. RESIDENT EVIL 4 LOOKS GREAT AND THAT WAS A GAMECUBE GAME. WHY IS EVERYTHING SO UGLY GODDAMN. OH GREAT SOME SCRIPTED EVENT GET AWAY FROM ME UGLY CHARACTER.

Multiplayer's neat but it's straight-up CoD without any way to communicate.

I'm really surprised it's reviewing as well as it is. It's not bad, but it's just so bland.

[darkvare]

everytime i see that night club in videos i remember this
http://ps2media.gamespy.com/ps2/imag...9083532290.jpg

also i was watching some videos of the ps3 bond game bloodstone i belive and craig looks like a freaking chimp

[Fathom Zero]

lol darkvare I was gonna pick Blood Money up again. Shit's hilarious. I remember the Blood Money thread here, as a matter of fact. That game rocks.

[Dr. Boogie]

Originally Posted by OxBlood

Really? I thought Castlevania was WAY better than God of war 3, which is probably the game you´ll be referring to. If not, please continue

Though I do agree on the music and the camera to a certain extent. The music was just a lot of wasted potential. I mean, Castlevania games have about the best music in any videogame franchise ever most of the time and what we get here just doesn´t cut it. Not at all. The cam...well, it´s shaking all the time for no reason. Other than that I had no complaints about it.

I intended for my response to be shorter, but things really took off once I got going:


The camera pisses me off because nearly every fight has been a case of me being just far enough from the camera and surrounded by just enough small, fast-moving enemies that the fights look like an argument between colored thumb prints. Plus, I find the sudden shifts in camera angles to be a bit disorienting, especially when the transition areas are placed near a fight.

As for the copying, a couple other reviews put it best: it's like they copied popular games without understanding what it was about those games that made them popular.

You've got combat from GoW, but the enemies overuse annoying attacks, in particular the ground pound that you have to avoid by jumping. Plus, buying more elaborate combos is all but pointless because they don't do that much more damage and pulling off long combos is too difficult on account of the nonstop blocking/dodging/countering from the enemies.

Then you've got the platforming and puzzle-solving from Prince of Persia. The problem with the platforming is that it holds your hand so much that it's little more than a slower version of walking to the next area. And the puzzles break up the action even more, but the game gives you the option to just solve them immediately in case you're getting bored. If the game had intense combat, I could see the reason for them including this stuff to give you a little break, but combat is just annoying, and then you have these boring interludes between battles.

And then there's the Shadow of the Colossus boss battles. Again, you've got an entertaining game element, but done in a terrible way. In SotC, the boss battles were epic because of the scale of things, but they were all the moreso because you had the anticipation of hunting down these large creatures beforehand. That way, you didn't get bored with slowly scaling and stabbing them. In contrast, putting such a battle in a action game, and dumbing down the entire affair so you're proceeding along a linear path looking for shiny spots so you can hit the magic context button, just slows things down even more, and that's when you're not getting shaken off and have to start things over again.


There's all that, plus the added bonus of having name-only references to Castlevania. Only the names of a few characters have made it in (Belmont, Cornell, Olrox, etc). The characters they were attached to have not. The best is Gabriel himself: in the game, they explain that he isn't even a Belmont; he just named himself "Belmont" because he thinks mountains are cool!

[Guitar Woman]

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

I'd like to congratulate it on being the first FPSRPG with sustainable/useful secondary powers. I think my favorite trick is Obfusticating around a corner and shotgunning people directly in the face when they come looking for me.

Rolling Malkavian is lamer than I thought it'd be, since it just makes my conversation choices really flowery and gay. I think that's worth it if I get more chances to drive people so insane they think their friendlies are giant salmon which they proceed to shoot at, though

[OxBlood]

Wait till you get in the Taxi at the End :D I freaking loved playing Malkavian, one of the best Gaming-experiences ever, but then again Bloodlines IS an amazingly good game (if patched correctly).

Originally Posted by Dr. Boogie

I intended for my response to be shorter, but things really took off once I got going:

Oh I don´t mind.

Camera: Apart from the perma-shakyness, I really didn´t mind, I´m used to fixed camera angles though I thought it was fucking stupid that they didn´t use the right stick for dodging instead they use it for nothing at all. I don´t remember having problems seeing or encountering my enemies apart from the odd off-screen jump attack but those things just happen.

Combat: I kind of agree on the sense of longer combos, some enemies just break through your attacks and hit you anyway. But I thought it was a lot better than spamming Plume of Prometheus as your only needed move like in every GOW game. The ground pound took some getting used to but actually it reminded me that Gabe has some very powerfull mid air attacks so I just used them. All in all, the combat is much more challenging than in the game they copied here I think. As I said, Plume of Prometheus and Dodging, that´s it on normal most of the time.

Platforming/Puzzles: I liked the "Platforming". Sure, it´s not really platforming, it hasn´t been in that Elika-Prince of Persia either, it´s just player-controlled cinematic transitions but I like those for some reason when the rest of the game is mostly fighting.
I really liked the pace of the puzzles though. Just when you had about enough of killing stuff, they game you some quieter moments and when those started to get old, the action came back. I don´t know why they thought it would be necessary to include the insta-solve option though either, that was stupid. The puzzles are what... a 3/10?

Colossus battles: On that I actually agree. I didn´t like those very much. Felt tacked on and copy-pasted from Sotc only that the three Colossi in Castlevania aren´t any fun to kill, they´re a moving jump&run level wrapped around a big dude. It would´ve been nicer to battle them from the ground, then using the enviroment to destroy them. Drop something on them, crash them into something, I don´t know it doesn´t take a genius to design a fun boss battle.
Though I don´t think, Sotc is my type of game. I played it, beat...I think 4 or 5 Colossi and then got insanely bored with it and put it down. Haven´t played it since though I can appreciate what they did there. Great idea and gorgeous world and atmosphere. I want a HD-Remake please.

Castlevania-Heritage: That bugged me when I first heard about it but after playing through this reboot/alternate universe/whatever it´s supposed to be, I don´t mind anymore. It tries to find its own identity and I think it succeeded. Sure it´s not what the original Castlevanias are, there´s a different mood here and a different type of atmosphere, but I like it and I´m looking forward to see what they are gonna do with it in the future, the post-credits scene was pretty cool I think

But basically they could´ve called it whatever they wanted but then people would have said "hey, that´s kinda like Castlevania, isn´t it?" So yeah, I´m cool with what they did.


Man, I think this will be a busy month. Hot Pursuit, Majin, Lufia, Dungeon Maker 2 and isn´t Splatterhouse about to be released too? I really wanna know if it´s good, I love that Mask